A Heart Of Heady Discontent
by Corporate Voyeur
Summary: With a calm exterior, you can hide any kind of inner universe within yourself. It's become an art, really. An art of survival. Because if you betray any of those thoughts, you'll end up spirited away to the Citadel where you'll end up either dead or worse
1. Chapter 1

I wish I could remember this world as it once was before the invasion, before the fall of humanity. I've read about the old times in books (illegal now, of course) and the hopeful plans they had for the future make me smile (weakly) in wistful pity for them.

I took a walk the other day under the guise of going out to get a food pack. But I really just wanted to get out of that stuffy apartment. Even the sun feels artificial, hell, it could be for all I know. Almost everything is fabricated these days, so why should the sun, the very sun, be genuine?

Anyway, I have a habit of digressing. Pardon me.

I was on my way to the plaza when I heard the deep and authoritative voices of Civil Protection. Being curious, I snuck over to the source of the commotion: an alley between two inconspicuous buildings. There in the alley stood a few Combine and three citizens. Two blue-clad citizens were leaned up against the brick of one of the buildings in submissive stances. The third was lying face down on the ground; motionless with blood spatters soiling the dirt beneath his head. Then the citizen nearest me turned his head and caught my startled gaze.

The look of fear in his eyes is something I will never forget. In that moment, he was pleading with me to intervene, create a diversion, to_ do something, will you!_

I couldn't help it, I turned and ran from the scene.

I knew police brutality, but not to this extent, never as a firsthand eyewitness. I mentally chastised myself; I knew better, I knew that all the goings-on initiated by Civil Protection were not protective in nature, at least not all of them.

I just kept running, no matter how suspicious it may have looked. And ironically, as my lungs burned from the sharp intake of the cool morning air, I felt alive for the first time in forever. Here I was, almost flying down a back street and sure to draw attention to myself, but I couldn't help but smile from the feeling of freedom.

Eventually, I slowed down as I neared the plaza. The familiar scene of the train station and the looming screens atop metal poles greeted me. Breen's face was stretched across the screens as usual. But then again, where wasn't he these days? I see him constantly; on the television in my apartment, the screens here in the plaza, even in the resistance graffiti in some of the forgotten parts of City 17. He always has that look of ownership written on his face, as if we are his younger siblings and he is issuing that cordial reprimand which always has a vaguely threatening undertone hidden just beneath the surface.

On days like this, I can feel an undercurrent of rebellion somewhere within me. I have no idea where it comes from, but it flows from an unknown source, like a sound where you can't pinpoint its origin. Sometimes it increases in frequency, transmits in a higher, more insistent pitch than before and drives you insane. But more often it is just a buzzing in the background; easily ignored but always there. This undercurrent, this sound, whatever you want to call it; it makes me want to do monumentally prohibited things.

Like acquire a gun.

Like sing in the public square.

Or distribute subversive propaganda.

Or start a revolution.

Despite all this, I made my silent and obedient way into the station to pick up my ration like the good citizen always does.

* * *

Later, when twilight descended over the city, I crept up to the roof of my apartment building. I took careful steps on the stairs as to not wake anyone behind closed doors.

I emerged on the roof with my head full of restless thoughts and a heart of heady discontent. I sat down and leaned against the ledge at the building's ledge and looked up to the stars above. They always seem calm and constant, as a contrast to their cores in never-ceasing turbulence. But that must be how we citizens of City 17 appear. With a calm exterior, you can hide any kind of inner universe within yourself. It's become an art, really. An art of survival. Because if you betray any of those thoughts, you'll end up spirited away to the Citadel where you'll end up either dead or worse.

But still, how easy would it be to just drift up there and just _be_? How easy would it be to drift away and be lost in that envelope of crushing silence?

The answer, is unfortunately not that easy, keep on dreaming.

Sometimes, I get angry at the people who fell in the Seven Hour War. Why couldn't they have fought longer? Took one more shot? Held one more fort? But then I come back down from the rage and realize that they were brutally surprised by the otherworldly invaders and did well to last the seven hours they did.

I closed my eyes and listened to the silence. Nighttime was the one time in City 17 where you could be still and almost fool yourself that this quiet town was every square kilometer of normal, when in fact every centimeter was far from what it could be, what it_ should _be.

In this brief moment of (relative) peace, I suddenly remembered a shadow I had glimpsed back in the alley earlier today. It looked something like a man in a bulky suit. Orange, it may have been. And he was holding something in his hand...something that resembled a tire iron, or maybe a crowbar. Though his face was obscured, I was pretty sure he was wearing glasses. But the shadows were dense in that back alley, not to mention the arrest scene I had originally happened upon. It was probably just my imagination running wild in the heat of the situation.

Yes, I think that's what it was. Anyways, if he was real, I doubt he'd get too far before Civil Protection got to him.

And I still can't shake this dire feeling of revolution.

* * *

**A/N: This piece was meant to sound like someone was speaking it aloud, so forgive any choppiness. I really have a strong attachment to this one and I don't really know why. **

**If you read, please review, you know the drill.**


	2. Chapter 2

This had been a long time coming. We've had enough of the unbridled police brutality and oppression.

But I am, of course, speaking on behalf of most of the citizens here. I can't speak for the sympathizers. But I don't even think they can speak for themselves.

Before the takeover, I was a chemist by trade. United Front Laboratories was the organization I worked for. We made plastics, pharmaceuticals, you name it. We even dabbled in defense weapons. Shortly after the Combine took over, they seized United Front. We didn't put up much of a fight.

I remember when they rounded up every person in that building and put us all in the central auditorium. They took me and about twenty other chemists and physicists and led us to the conference room.

I never saw the others we left behind in the auditorium.

I escaped the group along with a few others who wanted to resist. However, a good majority stayed with the Combine police, one of them being Doctor Lawrence Marshall. He was always the ambitious one, though there was something volatile about him. He researched the experiments of Doctor Josef Mengele in his spare time when he thought no one was looking, writing it off as 'curiosity'. But I had my suspicions about that man (and I still do). I still have nightmares about what the Combine could have put him up to do. But then again, he wouldn't have needed much prodding to do anything extreme.

Forgive me, I have a habit of digressing.

The materials weren't that difficult to acquire. Keeping the operation a secret was the hard part, for we were always subject to random and unwarranted searches. But we found places to hide the, shall I say, goods. Because if they knew what we were doing, they'd shoot us instantly and burn our bodies as if postmortem exposure would prompt similar behaviour in the citizens.

But whatever. They underestimated us from the beginning anyways.

And they also don't know of the budding underground arms trade. I've seen it myself. I've even worked on it.

The 'it' in question is a (very highly illegal) network of underground tunnels beneath City 17, absolutely stocked to the brim with pistols, assault rifles, semi-automatics, imported guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and even a few plasma rifles pilfered with the utmost care right out from under the collective nose of the Combine. And of course, there are hundreds of crates of ammo to go right along with it. We've been distributing them to other citizens who are ready to revolt as we are.

(Connect this wire to this port, pour in just enough gasoline...)

Anyone is eligible to receive a gun, but first we tell them of the risks. If they are even found with a gun or even a single shell, they'll be taken away and most likely never seen again. And maybe even assimilated into the ranks of the Combine and forced to perform acts of brutality upon their friends and neighbors. And if the revolt even happens, there's always the threat of assassination, either from the opposite side or even from the ranks of citizens themselves. So comes all these risks from simply accepting a weapon. They always ask when they will know to revolt. I smile to myself and tell them that oh, they'll know when.

(Silver nitrate is cheap enough and effective to boot...)

We haven't had anyone decline yet, despite the possible consequences. I can see the glimmer of hope in their eyes when the obedient weight of the gun falls in their hand. And I can feel this hope in everyday life. When I walk down to the plaza, I sometimes catch the eye of someone I've seen in the tunnels the previous night. We don't speak or even sit together. There's a nod of respect and we go our separate ways. But the connection is still there. I still feel their gaze on me, even after I've left; like the stale touches of your lover that just won't seem to fade from your skin.

(Maybe if I could get my hands on some nitroglycerin...no, this is fine...)

Sometimes people ask what we would do if we found a traitor in our midst. I say, nothing. I say that the people have a choice. Freedom is something that we took for granted. And anyways, they couldn't prove anything. Those who join our ranks are masters at hiding their true selves and their rebellious thoughts. Also, the Combine don't take the threat of rebellion very seriously. They think they have us perfectly subjugated. And they are correct, to an extent. But they didn't count on this small underground movement.

(I'll have to sneak these out to the plaza late at night...)

'Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light,' was how that old song began. And I think, on this morning, after my careful preparations the night before, that yes, there will be a perilous fight to come.

(Ten, nine, eight, seven, six...)

I'm standing at my window, gazing out toward the plaza. I'll appear to be daydreaming but that couldn't be more false. I'm both nervous and excited at the same time. The nerve endings in my body are on high alert. Today is the day.

(five, four, three, two..)

One more second and we will be free. This is the first day of the rest of our lives.

(One.)

Suddenly, a series of explosions went off in the quiet of the morning. A flock of doves roosting on a power line all took flight in a flurry of feathers. I'll remember the sound of their wings beating on the early morning for as long as I live. And the plaza popped with the sound of the bombs. Then, a monstrous detonation shattered the air. It was the biggest bomb of them all that went off inside the train station, my pride and joy, the one I called Queen Bee. The tremors from that explosion were felt all over City 17. My own apartment shook noticeably from the force. All over the city, our rebels would look to the square and feel a stirring in their hearts; an awakening, a call to arms.

I thought, yes, this is the time. This is the place. It's all beginning right now.

We will rise again.

**A/N: This was originally a standalone oneshot, but I'm reuploading it to be the sequel for this, it just seems to flow better.**

**Cake and wishes times two**

**For those who fave and review.**


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